Di: FYI France: the next Big Paris Project, Art History at the old BN
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FYI France: the next Big Paris Project, Art History at the old BN
In Paris, on the Rue Richelieu, there used to be this big
library...
Many of us have wondered what is to become of the vast, stately
spaces -- the "Salle Labrouste", etc. -- on the Right Bank which
once housed the bulk of the Bibliothe`que Nationale.
Well, now there is a very nice website,
which explains at least the plan -- the dream for some, nightmare
for others -- which many in Paris increasingly have been dreaming
/ nightmaring for the assemblage of a bold new "Institut National
de l'Histoire de l'Art / INHA" on the old BN Rue Richelieu site.
In French, English, German and Italian, the "Association de
Pre'figuration de l'Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art" --
child of the "Mission pour l'Institut National d'Histoire de
l'Art", which has been at work on all this for nearly a decade --
describes the dream of bringing together a seemingly - vast
collection of central Paris art schools, associations, and
libraries, beneath the roof of the old BN.
As of now 43 institutions are involved, many of them very
familiar to readers here: "unite's d'enseignement, centres de
recherche, bibliothe`ques, antennes d'institutions e'trange`res,
revues, socie'te's savantes".
It is not entirely clear -- or "settled", I expect -- of exactly
what said "involvement" will consist ultimately, for each.
Several of these are very ancient institutions -- very difficult
to dislocate -- for now they all are being called "Institutions
partenaires"...
* Archives de la critique d'art
* Archives of American Art
* Association des professeurs d'arche'ologie et d'histoire de
l'art des universite's (APAHAU)
* Bibliographie d'Histoire de l'Art (BHA)
* Bibliothe`que centrale des muse'es nationaux
* Bibliothe`que d'art et d'arche'ologie Jacques Doucet
* Bibliothe`que de l'Ecole nationale supe'rieure des beaux-arts
* Bibliothe`que de l'Ecole nationale des chartes
* Centre allemand d'histoire de l'art
* Centre de recherches sur l'histoire de l'art, Unite' mixte de
recherche Andre' Chastel, CNRS - Universite' de Paris IV
* Centre de sociologie des arts, Ecole des hautes e'tudes en
sciences sociales
* Centre d'e'tude de l'e'criture (CEE), Section Texte et image
* Centre d'Histoire et The'orie des Arts (CEHTA), Ecole des
hautes e'tudes en sciences sociales
* Centre inter universitaire de recherche en histoire de l'art
contemporain, XIXe - XXe sie`cles (CIRHAC)
* Centre Ledoux
* Centre Louis Gernet de recherches compare'es sur les socie'te's
anciennes, Unite' mixte de recherche 8567, CNRS - EHESS
* Centre Mondes romain et post-romain, Universite' de Paris I
* Comite' franc,ais d'histoire de l'art (CFHA)
* Comite' international d'histoire de l'art (CIHA)
* Corpus Vitrearum - France
* Cursus Arts du spectacle - Cine'ma, Universite' Paris VII -
Denis Diderot, Unite' de formation et de recherche Cine'ma,
communication et information
* DEA The'a^tre et arts du spectacle, Doctorats d'e'tudes
the'a^trales, Universite' de Paris III - Universite' de Paris X
* De'partement d'histoire de l'art et d'arche'ologie, Universite'
Paris X
* Ecole doctorale : Esthe'tique, sciences et technologies des
arts, Universite' de Paris VIII
* Ecole nationale des chartes
* Ecole nationale du patrimoine
* Ecole pratique des hautes e'tudes, IVe section (EPHE)
* Fonctionnement des syste`mes politiques et sociaux du monde
romain et helle'nistique, Unite' mixte de recherche 8585, (CNRS -
Universite' de Paris I - Universite' de Paris IV - EPHE IVe et Ve
sections), Bibliothe`que du Centre Gustave Glotz
* Formation de recherches cine'matographiques (FRC), DEA Cine'ma,
te'le'vision, audiovisuel, Universite' de Paris X
* Groupe d'anthropologie historique de l'Occident me'die'val
(GAHOM), Section du Centre de recherche historique, Unite' mixte
de recherche 8558, CNRS - EHESS
* Institut de recherche sur l'architecture antique : bureau de
Paris, Unite' propre de recherche 5500, CNRS
* Institut de recherche sur l'architecture antique : centre de
documentation photographique et photogramme'trique (CDPP), Unite'
propre de recherche 5500, CNRS
* Institut de recherche sur le cine'ma et l'audiovisuel (IRCAV),
UFR Cine'ma et audiovisuel - Universite' de Paris III
* Laboratoire de recherche sur le patrimoine franc,ais, Unite'
mixte de recherche 22, CNRS
* Laboratoire de recherches sur les arts du spectacle, Equipe
postulante 1985, CNRS
* Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC), Unite'
mixte de recherche 7038, CNRS, Universite' de Paris X
* Revue Histoire de l'Art
* Revue Revue de l'Art, CNRS
* Socie'te' de l'histoire de l'art franc,ais (SHAF)
* Socie'te' franc,aise d'arche'ologie (SFA)
* Socie'te' franc,aise d'arche'ologie classique (SFAC)
* UFR d'histoire de l'art et arche'ologie, Univ. de Paris IV
* UFR d'histoire de l'art et d'arche'ologie, Univ. de Paris I
* Videomuseum
-- such, anyway, is the plan.
Combining any two of such a disparate and doubtless - entrenched
and inevitably strong - minded set of organizations would be a
strenuous achievement, at best, attempted anywhere -- leave it to
Paris, I suppose, to throw caution to the winds in trying to meld
43 of them, or at least aspects of them, together in a single
project.
But then the Parisians did get their new national library built,
at Tolbiac, so let's see what this latest extremely ambitious Big
Paris Project proposes, and might accomplish:
The History
The overall rationale is clear and even obvious, for anyone who
ever tried to pursue any study of art history in central Paris
during the last century: you used to have to wander all over the
city, there was great overlap and no - doubt - expensive
duplication, and everybody did things just a little bit
differently -- different opening hours, different use policies,
different organization and classification and photocopy policies
and telephone availability, and everyone had their own very
individualistic holiday schedule! -- all charming
"French" eccentricities, for a tourist, but maddening for any
time - and - budget constrained researcher.
So here is what they are hoping to do:
"Why an Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art ?"
"Today most organizations devoted to research and teaching in the
history of art in France must operate in deplorable working
conditions. Unsuitable workspaces and a lack of information
services transform the daily lives of thousands of students into
an obstacle course, impeding the development of cooperative
research, limiting conferences and group discussion of the
methods and goals of the discipline, and making exchanges with
foreign colleagues difficult. The danger of sclerosis and malaise
is pressing.
"Ever since the submission of the Andre' Chastel Report in 1983,
numerous studies all have concluded that a strong intiative is
needed in this area. These studies have rendered more and more
clearly the image of the institution which must be put into
place. But the decisive event was the decision to construct the
Tolbiac site, for the transfer there of a large part of the
activities of the Bibliothe`que Nationale de France.
"In 1992, new studies were made to, on the one hand, develop
plans for the evolution of the specialized departments of the
Bibliothe`que Nationale de France (Manuscrits, Estampes et
Photographies, Cartes et Plans, Monnaies, Me'dailles et Antiques,
Arts du Spectacle, Musique), and on the other, to regroup
reference libraries in the history of art -- and notably the
Bibliothe`que d'Art et d'Arche'ologie - Jacques Doucet -- all of
which would be transferred to the Rue de Richelieu beginning in
1993, and finally to develop a plan for the teaching and research
organizations necessary at the site.
"A report on the Institut International d'Histoire des Arts was
assigned to Pierre Encreve' by Lionel Jospin, the Ministre de
l'Education Nationale, et Jack Lang, the Ministre de la Culture
et de la Communication. The general recommendations of this
report, which was submitted in October 1992, and the conclusions
of a study made in 1993 by Philippe Be'laval of the Bibliothe`que
Nationale de France, were taken up by the Mission pour l'Institut
National d'Histoire de l'Art, assigned by the Prime Minister in
1994 to Michel Laclotte.
"In 1998 the government of Lionel Jospin agreed to the creation
of an Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art, responsible jointly
to the Ministe`re de la Culture et de la Communication and to the
Ministe`re de l'Education nationale, de la Recherche et de la
Technologie. This new organization is to be multidisciplinary,
and it will be open to the studies of the fixed image, the moving
image, and the arts du spectacle."
(tr.JK -- from the INHA website at,
http://www.inha.fr/frames.asp?lg=2&nav=4&nav2=15&page=guidepratique.asp?lg=2)
Such, anyway, is the dream. I first heard about it myself 'way
back in 1992 -- and even then proponents already had been
discussing it excitedly, and opponents had been digging in their
heels determinedly, already for a decade in Paris. There have
been various "rumors of demise" on several occasions in the
decade since. But some people, and ideas -- and some needs,
perhaps -- are tenacious, so today the INHA dream appears to be,
still, very much alive.
The Library
The library is to be an integral part of the INHA: already it is
assembling well over 1/2 million "documents", which will become
available to the public as early as 2006 -- that is one _big_
"art" collection, and 2006 is only 5 years away now, folks --
"The Library and the Documentation Center"
"The Library of the INHA
"The Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art is assembling an open
research library. It will develop collections of reference works
in art and in archeology. This library will become a major
resource center for Western Art, from classical antiquity to our
times. In all of its areas, including architecture and urbanism,
it will aim for completeness. It will unite the collections of
the Bibliothe`que Centrale des Muse'es Nationaux, the l'Ecole
Nationale Supe'rieure des Beaux-Arts, the Bibliothe`que d'Art et
d'Arche'ologie - Jacques Doucet, and the Ecole Nationale des
Chartes. A program which will fill in any gaps in the collection
already has been launched, with the aid of working groups of
specialists.
"The library will consist of a collection of about one million
volumes, complemented by specialized documents (manuscripts,
plans, prints, photographs) at, notably, the considerable
collections in these areas of the Ecole Nationale Supe'rieure des
Beaux-Arts and the Bibliothe`que d'Art et d'Arche'ologie.
"The Bibliothe`que de l'INHA will be accessible to a large user -
public of students, researchers, and specialists (student -
researchers, curators), and also to various professionals
(documentalists, commercial users, etc.).
"In order to facilitate stack - access for authorized users, the
entire collection will be re - cataloged and then classified
according to a standardized system.
"The staffs of the four libraries involved are working together,
pooling their ideas on the operation of the future Bibliothe`que
de l'INHA and on the complementarity of their various efforts.
"The current missions of the different partners (inter - library
lending for the Bibliothe`que d'Art et d'Arche'ologie, for
example, or leading a national network, for the Bibliothe`que
Centrale des Muse'es Nationaux) will be continued. The
Bibliothe`que de l'INHA also will launch new digitization
programs, and will offer new document delivery services.
"The Documentation Center
"An extraordinary effort will be devoted to the building of our
documents collection (photos, and digital research tools). It is
well known that in France organizations for these purposes are
gravely lacking. The creation of a documentation center
comparable to those which exist abroad must be done from scratch,
or nearly. This documentation center will include photo
libraries, databases, and thematic collections.
"This is not a matter of creating a universal documentation
center, however, as in certain areas well organized collections
already exist: the documentation of painting at the Louvre, for
example, or the documentation at the Muse'e d'Orsay, that of the
Muse'e National d'Art Moderne - Centre de Cre'ation Industrielle
at the Centre Georges-Pompidou, and that of the Archives de la
Critique d'Art.
"For reasons of efficiency, and complementarity with institutions
abroad, the technical and financial efforts will concentrate on
the patrimoine national. Many themes have been suggested: the
history of the histories of art and of archeology in France, the
collections and the commercial market for art in France, archives
of the 20th century, musical inconography. It is well understood
that such themes will demand precise definition, and will have to
be approved by a technical advisory council.
"The photography collection, which is derived from diverse
sources, will be classified thematically, systematized in several
ways (through indexing, cataloging, digitization, bibliographic
research), and made available for distance communication.
"The construction of this documentation center is a strenuous,
costly, but indispensable task. The creation, organization, and
operation of the center will be the direct responsibility of the
management of the Institute. But the enrichment of the
collections will not be possible without the active technical
cooperation of the organizations which the Institute unites, and
the specialized departments of the Bibliothe`que Nationale de
France, as well as the museums, the Archives Nationales, the
other universities, all the libraries of France, all centers of
research for the patrimoine national, and foreign organizations
(each according to its specialty). This collective project will
build the federation which is to be the Institut National
d'Histoire de l'Art -- by linking together, concretely and
permanently, the entire community of French art historians."
(tr.JK -- from the INHA website at,
http://www.inha.fr/frames.asp?lg=2&nav=4&nav2=15&page=guidepratique.asp?lg=2)
Controversies and Realities, and Panache
The "combining" of large institutions, such as libraries,
conjures up Gotterdamerung visions in the minds of some people.
There are the prices to be paid for "combination": things lost
and / or damaged in transit, lovable old eccentricities left to
wither in the new inevitably - more - efficient environment, and
personal service, which somehow never is the same under the new
regime, at least for those who were fortunate enough to have
enjoyed it under the old.
As with the Bibliothe`que Franc,ois Mitterrand construction
controversies, all of the above issues and more have found their
advocates, already, among critics of the INHA idea, and the
criticisms no doubt will continue -- and grow more shrill, as
completion dates approach.
But the gains to be made are many as well -- perhaps more. My own
memories of trying to find architecture information in central
Paris -- as a reasonably intelligent if somewhat naive and
hopelessly - young researcher, back in the early 1970s -- are of
a byzantine if lovably - eccentric system, designed to frustrate
any but the already very - well - initiated. How much worse it
must have been, back then, for others -- perhaps foreigners who
knew nothing of the language, but also anyone at all unfamiliar
with the intricacies of the French bureaucracy... patterned on
the Chinese mandarinate, I think Etienne Balazs said...
Now, though, France and particularly Paris live in a globalizing
world, as do we all, and French art and its history need to
confront some modern realities. So I suppose the well - loved
byzantines who guided me in the filling out of forms, in 1970
Paris, must give way to something more generally user - friendly,
now. But it also is terribly expensive, after all, to duplicate
reference collections, and information services, and collections
themselves, across a vast variety of institutions -- at least 43
are involved in this project alone, to date -- all devoted to the
same or similar activity. And that duplication expense is much
greater, now that journal subscription prices and digital
infrastructure costs have replaced the pencil sharpener outlays
of the not - so - distant past: different budgets, different
realities.
And, finally, there may be much to be gained simply by shaking up
the old formula: "sclerosis", definitely -- I remember thinking
how sclerotic the central Paris procedures were, back in 1970,
when I was 21 -- so the young artists, and young art historians,
who only now are 21 but who face the same procedures and
bureaucracy which I confronted back then, definitely must think
that the Paris arteries have hardened.
Change does take nerve, however. There always are a few losses,
to balance the gains somewhat -- and change can be very costly,
as the Bibliothe`que Franc,ois Mitterrand discovered. Change is
needed however, nowadays, in anything involving "information":
the old paradigms no longer work, the new ones have not been
perfected or even invented yet, the cost structures are shifting
too radically -- institutions have to "get nimble", and stay
there, just to keep up.
So this is the thing which interests me most, personally, about
this INHA project: the French are known for their nerve, what
they themselves call -- sometimes ruefully -- their "panache"
(think "Cyrano"), proven most recently by their completion, at
very high odds, of that giant new library up at Tolbiac.
Now they say that they will build a giant new art history
institute at the old location on the Rue Richelieu, one which
will be "multidisciplinary, and open to the studies of the fixed
image, the moving image, and the arts du spectacle" and
"available for distance communication"...
Well, I say, "go for it, folks!" -- the rest of us are wondering
just how we are going to crack this particular one, too, so if
you guys have the nerve, the "panache", to get going on it, the
rest of us all will be watching -- a few with daggers drawn, but
all watching, and all with great excitement. We're with you, and
good luck.
And this time around, at least, they're recycling a beautiful old
building rather than constructing anew: so hopefully there won't
be endless arguments, on this one, about "building heights" and
"tropical woods"... but something else, maybe...
--oOo--
Re. the February FYI France issue on Montolieu:
I am grateful to Robin Briggs and several others for having
pointed out to me, privately and diplomatically, the geological
impossibility of inhabiting both the valley of the Garonne and
that of the Aude at the same time... and Carcassonne definitely
is located only in the latter. When you cut and paste from word
processors, always be sure that the entire paragraph goes over --
not an unedited earlier mistake which then gets tacked on to a
later but contradictory version. Too bad, as "the valley of the
Garonne" has such a nice ring to it...
Corrections are _always_ welcome -- very much appreciated, in
fact.
--oOo--
FYI France (sm)(tm) e-journal ISSN 1071 - 5916
*
| FYI France (sm)(tm) is a monthly electronic
| journal published since 1992 as a small-scale,
| personal experiment, in the creation of large-
| scale "information overload", by Jack Kessler.
/ \ Any material written by me which appears in
----- FYI France may be copied and used by anyone for
// \\ any good purpose, so long as, a) they give me
--------- credit and show my email address, and, b) it
// \\ isn't going to make them money: if it is going
to make them money, they must get my permission
in advance, and share some of the money which they get with me.
Use of material written by others requires their permission.
FYI France archives may be found at http://infolib.berkeley.edu
(search fyifrance), or http://www.cru.fr/listes/bibl...@cru.fr/
(BIBLIO-FR archive), or http://listserv.uh.edu/archives/pacs-l.html
(PACS-L archive) or http://www.fyifrance.com . Suggestions,
reactions, criticisms, praise, and poison-pen letters all will be
gratefully received at kes...@well.sf.ca.us .
Copyright 1992- , by Jack Kessler,
all rights reserved except as indicated above.
--hjlm--
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